T&T’s Jahreef Miguel and Jerome Mor­ri­son en­joyed a mixed start to the NORCE­CA Un­der-21 Beach Vol­ley­ball Cham­pi­onships, the of­fi­cial qual­i­fi­ca­tion tour­na­ments on the road to the 2025 FIVB Age-Group World Cham­pi­onships in Juan Do­lio, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Fri­day.

Com­pet­ing in Pool C at the Juan Do­lio Bec­ah, Mor­ri­son and Miguel were beat­en in their open­ing pool match by Cos­ta Ri­cans Ju­lian Araya and Es­te­ban 21-23, 7-21 in 36 min­utes while Guatemalans Fredy Lu­na and Jose Gue­vara came-from-be­hind to beat Cay­man Is­lands’ Stephen Wat­son, and Dy­lan Lynee 14-21, 21-17, 15-9.

How­ev­er, in their sec­ond match on court, Miguel and Mor­ri­son had much bet­ter for­tune and pre­vailed against Wat­son and Lynee 21-19, 21-16 in 39 min­utes while Araya and Es­te­ban won for the sec­ond straight match, 21-15, 21-12 over Lu­na and Gue­vara.

To­day from 9.40 am, Miguel and Mor­ri­son will meet Lu­na and Gue­vara with a win se­cur­ing a spot in the main draw quar­ter­fi­nals while Wat­son and Lynee come up against Araya and Es­te­ban.

In the women’s draw, the T&T duo of Sarah Mo­hammed and Jenis­sa Mor­ri­son were beat­en in their two match­es to date, first los­ing 4-21, 4-21 against Guatemalans Dan­na Aguilar and Nao­mi Mon­ney, and then by Bar­ba­di­ans, Des­tiny Layne, and Sier­ra Ray­side 11-21, 17-21 ahead of their match against Nicaraguans, Yu­liana Chvez and El­la Re­sau to end pool play to­day from 11 am.

At the end of the round-robin pool com­peitions in each gen­der the top two teams will qual­i­fy to the main draw quar­ter­fi­nals ahead of the semi­fi­nals and fi­nals on Sun­day, from which the top five teams will earn di­rect qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the main draw of the FIVB U-21 World Cham­pi­onship which will be held in Puebla, Mex­i­co, from Oc­to­ber 15-19.

This will be fol­lowed im­me­di­ate­ly by the U-18 cham­pi­onship from Mon­day to Wednes­day where T&T will be rep­re­sent­ed by Dar­i­on Sparks and Josie Ce­de­no (U-18 boys) and Mo­hammed and Mor­ri­son (U-18 girls).

For the U-18 boys tour­na­ment, Sparks and Ce­de­no will bat­tle teams from Cana­da, Cay­man Is­lands, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Do­mini­ca, host Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Grena­da, Guatemala, Hon­duras, US Vir­gin Is­lands, St Lu­cia, Mex­i­co, Nicaragua, Puer­to Ri­co, and USA while Mo­hammed and Mor­ri­son will al­so don the red, white and black colours against teams from An­guil­la, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bermu­da, Cana­da, Cay­man Is­lands, Cos­ta Ri­ca, host Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, El Sal­vador, Guatemala, US Vir­gin Is­lands, Mex­i­co, Nicaragua, Puer­to Ri­co, and USA while

At the end of the tour­na­ment, the top four teams per gen­der in each event will earn di­rect qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the main draw of the FIVB U-18 World Cham­pi­onship which is sched­uled to take place in Do­ha, Qatar, from Oc­to­ber 7-11.